The Bactrian camel was not indigenous to China. Refer to Schloss, Ancient Chinese Ceramic Sculpture, Stamford, Connecticut, 1977, vol. I, pl. 220, where he discusses the importation of thousands of camels from the states of the Tarim Basin, eastern Turkestan and Mongolia. The Tang state even created a special office to supervise the imperial camel herds which carried out various state assignments, including military courier service for the Northern Frontier. The camel was also used by the court and merchants for local transportation and, of course, were the 'ships of the desert' linking China to the oasis cities of central Asia, Samarkand, Persia and Syria

Compare the very similar sancai-glazed camel and rider from the Eumorfopoulos Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum of the same size and posture, also with textured tufts of hair, with the rider wearing a quite similar tall, conical hat, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 6, Tokyo, 1975, pl. 45
See, also, the group of camel and separate rider of equally large size in the collection of Ezekiel Schloss, illustrated in Ancient Chinese Ceramic Sculpture, ibid., vol. II, col. pl. XI, where the rider, also wearing a quite similar conical hat, is identified by Schloss as of Caucaso-Iranian type from northeastern Iran and that this type of felt hat 'was worn much earlier by the Saka-Scythians'

Compare, also, the large camel with rider of ethnic type similar to the Schloss rider, illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art, 'Chinese Ceramics I: Neolithic to Liao', Hong Kong, 1993, no. 93 and another illustrated by Li Zhi Yan, The Art of Glazed Pottery of China, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 162, fig. 137